Old Yeller (1957)
I remember checking the VHS out from the library when I was a kid, either to skip ahead in the book or cos it had a doggie on it. I watched it alone and I remember calling mom into the room as the ending was building up – in denial, probably sitting there smiling like, “Hehe, hi ma, just watch this with me? MY GOD A GUN WHY DOES SHE HAVE A GUN DO YOU OWN A GUN MA?? [spoiler alert] WTF MA??” I haven’t watched it since. I don’t even know if it’s that great but it makes the list since it started it all.
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
I finally watched this a couple months ago. Burton and Taylor (and George Segal and Sandy Dennis) are excellent (hell, even the two employees in the scene above are amazing), and I really hope I do watch it again if only to take notes. The uncomfortable moments – and every character has one or more with every other character, it’s insane – make the film, and made it one of the hardest for me to finish.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
A friend of mine did a stage production of this a year or two ago and said that it was hard for him, that developing the character and taking him home every night was depressing. Luckily he wasn’t McMurphy. The film draws you in by showing you a side of the human experience not usually seen and certainly not usually viewed with such sarcasm (i.e. via McMurphy). Is he insane or is he an asshole? (Not me- McMurphy.)
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
The bleakest film I’ve seen – you know, “You can’t always get what you want, and what you need is really, really, really going to suck, man.” But it’s not just the subject matter that bothered me – it was how it was showed: the choppy editing throughout, and especially as the movie crescendos, is just a damn assault. It has more than 2,000 cuts (about four times as many in a typical film), and anyone who has seen it has the scars to prove.
Road to Perdition (2002)
This one is hard to put on here, but the truth is I need to put this on here cos I need to stop watching it. I cry every time. I cry over small shit in this film – like when they leave the old couple something for their trouble. Road to Perdition is one of Sam Mendes’ best moments, capturing the hardships of the Depression, showing why people stick together and how loyalty is not a question of morality.
Painted Veil (2006)
I’m not sure I can talk about why I won’t watch Painted Veil again without spoiling such a damn good film… so I’ll make something up: Trapped in a loveless marriage, Kitty Fane (Naomi Watts) is forced by her husband – the calculating and seemingly spineless Walter Fane (Edward Norton) – to join him in cholera-stricken China. When that doesn’t work, Walter starts ripping heads off kittens (cholera-stricken as well) – one every day until Kitty (Watts, with me?) will sleep with him. This takes years.
Up (2009)
Up is Pixar’s bravest moment and one of their most touching films.(TWENTY MINUTES IN?? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME – TWENTY MINUTES IN??)
Blue Valentine (2010)
Did I buy this to facilitate getting over someone? Yes. Did it work? Not fucking immediately. Both performances are superb – with defining characteristics in two different time periods (beginning and end), characteristics that stand out even as the film splices the two time periods together. It has it all: infatuation, love, “What are you doing with your life?,” yelling – all which we had. It’s not all we had, but we certainly couldn’t get through it. And that’s okay. Shit, am I talking about the movie anymore? Yes and no – I remember the good times and bad and I saw them play out in Blue Valentine. Would I (we?) have seen it the same way had we watched it together? (Did we need to watch it at all?)
EYEPATCHPLEASE 